I’m a little on the fence about whether Toymail is a genius idea or an error that’ll have your kids talking to mailboxes.

Here’s the concept: On the kid-friendly end, there’s a Wi-Fi-connected, mailbox-shaped, animal-themed (there are five characters) device called a Mailman. On the other end is the Toymail app (no link because it’s not yet up at the App Store), which a parent can use to record and send voice messages to the Mailman, which get sent to the Mailman to be played; just for fun, the messages can be recorded with whimsical voice filters. Multiple Toymail apps can connect to a single Mailman, which means dad, mom, grandma and the babysitter can all send messages to the same child. Kids can even reply with their own messages any number of times after listening to a message.

The app is free, and comes with ten free messages; after that, each message will have to be paid for in the form of stamps (we’re assuming each stamp is worth one message). A buck will get you fifty stamps; for exceptionally chatty kids or parents, unlimited messaging can be had for $3 a month.

The Mailmen are $50 each — which won’t change much from the post-Kickstarter price — which makes them fairly inexpensive holiday gifts for younger kids. That is, if you can get around the idea of parenting via a mailbox-shaped cartoon character.